War songs are about struggle, freedom, and hatred of the enemy. Some of them were written a long time ago but were waiting for their time. Others were created in an emotional rush on the knee, in shelters and bomb shelters. They have already entered history and demonstrated the unity of Ukrainians.
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Next, we will talk about them in detail ⤵️
“Wake up, February stole spring. Wake up, don’t sleep over the war,” a song written a few years ago by Sasha Chemerov predicted the future.
During the war, a song with the image of a traditional Ukrainian symbol in the center could not fail to be released.
Yuliia Yurina, together with Ukrainian musicians Jandy and Taiga Ivan, made a song based on Ivan Franko’s poem The Stonemasons and the Ukrainian folk song Tuman Yarom (Fog In the Gully).
Nazarii Yaremchuk’s daughter left the stage in 2018 and has not released songs since then. Now she is back with a new piece. As the singer says, “My own little internal war for independence came out on paper with this song.”
The recipe for a up-to-date cover: you take a song that, per legends, was sung by Italian partisans during the Second World War, and add to it the author’s text in Ukrainian.
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“Fucked a muscovite so hard that the earth has got on fire,” this opening line of an ardent song to support Ukrainian soldiers. As the authors said, the song was appreciated at the front.
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The member of the 5’nizza updated one of the most famous duo’s songs. Yes, let it be so from now on!
On the first day of the war, the band released a new album, and its members went to serve in the Territorial Defense of Kyiv. The title track, Millennials, is an uplifting manifesto with the lines, “For all you left us was fire, and all that embraced us was fire.”
We will definitely win and hand over the country to our children. The new song by the two bands is dedicated to them.
Frontman of the band Vagonovozhatye Anton Slepakov and musician Andrii Sokolov recorded two tracks in which they reflect on the war.
Remember Anastasiia Shevchenko? The author of the song Lullaby for the Enemy, which gained even more popularity during the war, has returned with a new track.
It’s difficult not to be sad in these circumstances. However, music can be a source of light. Kateryna Ofliyan and Ihor Biriuchenko prove it.
Folk experimenters Ukie’z reworked the ancient rebel song There, under the Lviv Castle in their own way.
“Go home while your home is still there; the dove of peace is chewing on your remains,” Stepan Burban (паліндром) throws a text filled with rage towards the enemy under Anton Shiferson’s (Ship Her Son) aggressive electronics.
The song was supposed to be released in April, but its time came during the war. Mom is the soldier’s call to his mother, who is worried and waiting for news at home. A version of the song with the participation of TNMK was also released.
The song about the Tatars losing their home was supposed to be released on February 26, the Day of Crimean Resistance to the Russian Occupation. Recorded together with the Crimean Tatar singer Elvira Sarykhalil to Serhii Zhadan’s poem.
A short sketch song about the new reality of Ukrainians with sirens, basements, and home shelters.
One of the few new bands that managed to announce themselves in 2022 also put their experiences from the war into a song.
Native Kherson resident, who is radically opposed to Russia and has banned his music there, wrote a touching song in Ukrainian.
The former frontman of Tartak wrote this song several years ago and dedicated it to his friend. “Today, it is dedicated to all the Ukrainian male and female soldiers who fight so hard that the forest hums!”
“The war brought a summon to every Ukrainian, winter said goodbye with the smell of gunpowder, and spring was greeted with tears from which snowdrops grow,” nothing to add to this description of the song.
Viacheslav Drofa dedicated a new song release of which was planned before the start of the war, to the sculptor Mykola Golovan, who recently passed away.
“Mykola is an example of perseverance, which is so necessary for each of us today. An example of the ability to not give up, carrying light even through the heaviest losses. The war will end – we will last forever,” said the rapper.
A bomb fun track that was playing everywhere in Ukraine. It’s not for nothing. And it’s clearl why as Шо ви браття lifts your spirits at once.
Member of the rap group Your God is Drunk Today (Твій Бог Сьогодні П’яний) who wrote the same song about Putin’s death, released a new track with the refrain “to kill vatniks Muscovites, punish the damned Muscovites.”
A lyrical song with charismatic vocals, in which the musician tried to convey the current state of mind of every Ukrainian.
“‘Mriya’ will fly again, we will win this battle,” sing the authors of a popular song Vechornytsi in a new tender song.
The Turkish Bayraktar drone is probably what Russian troops see in their nightmares, and for some, its high-precision strikes have become the last memory of their lives. Not surprisingly, the drone began to be celebrated in songs, one of which was recorded by Vivienne Mort’s frontwoman.
The Turkish Bayraktar drone is probably what Russian troops see in their nightmares, and for some, its high-precision strikes have become the last memory of their lives. Not surprisingly, the drone began to be celebrated in songs, one of which was recorded by Vivienne Mort’s frontwoman.
“We don’t need Marvel and we don’t need DC. We have our Armed Forces, a Russian fascist, suck it!” The most cooledst glorification of the strength of the Armed Forces came from a Ukrainian rap group.
Do you know those endless YouTube videos of an animated girl in headphones doing homework with a cat next to her and a hip-hop instrumental playing in the background?
Джозерс’s new work plays with such videos, but in the context of war: a Molotov cocktail is on the boy’s table, there is a fire outside the window, and he himself is probably not doing his homework, but reading the news to the band’s lyrical reflections on people’s feelings on the war.
Nastia Kamenskyh sang a song on behalf of Ukraine, the text of which was written by her husband, Oleksii Potapenko (Potap).
The singer, who was popular in the 2000s, refreshed her hit Я кажу ні (I say no) adding current meanings to it.
Sasha Chemerov wrote a song four years ago in Los Angeles for another Ukrainian artist. The collaboration did not continue, but the song remained. It was recorded in Lviv together with O.Torvald’s frontman on the 11th day of Russia’s war against Ukraine and dedicated to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Translator: Tetiana Roshko
